Captain William Driver (1803-1886) was born Salem, Massachusetts, USA. He went to sea aged 14, and made his first voyage to Fiji in quest of beche-de-mer in September, 1872, in the ship Clay under Captain Benjamin Vanderford. He spent 49 months in the South Seas beche-de-mer trade before returning to Salem. Given command of the Charles Doggett, he sailed for the Pacific again in January, 1831. He remained at sea until 1837 when he retired to Nashville, Tennessee.

The logbook is for the voyage of the Charles Doggett. It begins on January 30, 1831, when the ship was 2,098 sea miles from Salem en route to New Zealand, and ends in March, 1832, when the ship was gathering a cargo of beche-de-mer in Fiji. In the interval, calls were made at Tubuai, Tahiti (French Polynesia), Pitcairn Island, Samoa, Tahiti and Niuatoputapu (Tonga). Driver's visit to Pitcairn Island from Tahiti was for the purpose of returning 65 descendants of the Bounty mutineers, who had been moved from Pitcairn to Tahiti four months earlier as it was feared that their island was becoming overpopulated. Driver describes this episode in some detail in an 1871 memoir accompanying his logbook of the Charles Doggett.
See also the Bureau's newsletter Pambu, December 1969:17.

The Rev. Henry Nisbet, LL.D. (1818-76), a missionary of the London Missionary Society, left England for the Pacific Islands in August 1840. He reached Samoa from Sydney in August 1841, and went to Tanna, New Hebrides (Vanuatu), in the following June. He returned to Samoa in February 1843 and was stationed there for the rest of his life. In 1846 and 1848 he visited Niue, the New Hebrides and the Loyalty Islands on behalf of his mission. He visited Australia in 1854 and 1867-68; and England and Canada in 1869-70.

Nisbet began the practice of keeping a daily diary several years before he left England and continued it until ten days before his death.
One notebook (numbered 1), 13 journals (numbered 2-14), some hymns in Samoan, and letters from Nisbet to his second wife, Lydia Lantoret.

Reel 1: Notebook (5pp) recounting Nisbet's interest in missionary labours, 1835-6, and his connection with the LMS, 1836. Diaries numbered 1-3, 21 September 1836 to 26 July 1840. Journal of a voyage from England to Tanna, New Hebrides, 10 August 1840 - 8 February 1841. Diary No.4, 8 Sept. 1840-3 Jan. 1851. Correspondence register, 1840-67.
Reel 2: Journal Nos 5-9, 6 January 1851 to 12 February 1869.
Reel 3: Journal Nos 10-14, 13 February 1869 to 29 April 1876. 'Mr Nisbet's Hymns', circa 1850 - hymns in the Samoan language. Letters from Nisbet to his second wife, Lydia Lantoret, 1870-76, and a few of her letters to the family and other miscellaneous letters, 1870-82.

Captain William L. Hudson was commander of the US ship Peacock, one of the vessels of the United States Exploring Expedition to the Pacific 1838-42, commanded by Commodore Charles Wilkes.

The journal begins on 20 August 1838 and is preceded by a list of the officers and scientific corps of the United States Exploring Expedition and correspondence relating to it. It continues to 8 August 1840 and includes copies of correspondence exchanged during the voyage. The journal and preceding papers fill 567 pages. On p.564 is a summary of the voyage showing the dates of arrival at various ports. Places visited in the Pacific were: The Tuamotu Islands, Tahiti, Samoa, Lord Howe Island, Tonga and Fiji.

Alden was an officer in the sloop-of-war 'Vincennes', the flagship of the United States Exploring Expedition which spent four years in the Pacific under the command of Commodore Charles Wilkes.

The journal gives an account - but not a day-by-day account - of the Vincennes voyage which took in the Tuamotu Archipelago, Tahiti, Samoa, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, the Antarctic, Hawaii, the Gilbert (Kiribati), Ellice (Tuvalu) and Marshall Islands. See also PMB MS 124-146 and the Bureau's newsletter, Pambu, Dec. 1971:25, pp. 4-7.

A catalogue of the ethnographic items collected by the United States Exploring Expedition to the Pacific (1838-42) led by Commodore Charles Wilkes. The Expedition visited the Tuamotu Islands, Tahiti (in French Polynesia), Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Lord Howe Island, Australia, New Zealand/Aotearoa, Gilbert Islands (Kiribati), Marshall Islands, and Hawaii. The catalogue was prepared in 1846 by Titian Ramsay Peale, an artist-naturalist with the Expedition. A typescript version, prepared by the PMB, follows the original document on the microfilm. See also the Bureau's newsletter, Pambu, October-December 1971:25, pp. 4-7 and PMB MS 89 and MS 146.

Please see PMB MS 184. These papers comprise part of the records of the Vicariate of Samoa which are designated Oceania Navigatores (ON) in the Marist Archives.

The microfilm contains papers in the following files:

• Miscellaneous correspondence (1909-20)
• ON 980 - Samoan appointments (1896-80, 1885 et seq.)
• ON 2195 - Indigenae
• ON 221 - Conventiones (re land, 1847-8, 1877)
• ON 230 - Eventus
• ON 310 - Litterae Circulares, 1873-1920
• ON 321 - Rel. Episc. Ad. S. Cong. Propaganda (1874-1919)
• ON 331 - Relationes Visitatorum (1870-1915)
• ON 333 - Relationes Procuratorium (1853-1917)
• ON 411 - Mgr. Lamaze, Administrator, 1879-96 (1892-5)
• ON 418 - Mgr. Brayer, 1896-1918 (1896-8)